Jingle Bells, Batman Smells
by AvaRosier
Summary: Lydia and Stiles run a pie shop/private investigation business, and Derek likes to lurk inside so he can be around Stiles. It's Christmastime and a rash of murders just might be what everyone needs to realize what's important to them. Inspired by Pushing Daisies


At this very moment in the town of Beacon Hills, Jackson Whittemore was 21 years, 4 weeks, 1 day and 39 minutes old. An aspiring movie star who had only met with modest commercial success thus far, he had a disproportionately large ego and vanity abounds. He enjoyed strolling near the main shopping center in town, hoping to be recognized by beautiful women who would be eager to go out to dinner with him. But alas, the evening had a different end in mind for him.

"Fucking hell," he cursed, stopping on the sidewalk to gape at his reflection in the Blockbuster store window. Peering close at his face, slightly reddened from the cold winter weather, he muttered darkly. "That had better not be a wrinkle."

Next to his reflection, a flat-screen television was playing the six o'clock news broadcast. "_The Beacon Hills Sheriff's department has declined to comment on the string of dead bodies that have been appearing all over town, but several sources close to the department have indicated that the deaths may be werewolf-related. The two victims have been identified as employees at the Winter Wonderland theme park, and both men worked as Santa Claus in the Christmas Village. This has led to the murderer being dubbed Sandy Claws_…" Jackson stood frozen in front of the TV, mind racing. Then he let out a groan and pouted. "That's great. I just _know_ this is going to give me gray hair before I'm 22." With that, he spun away from the store window. Jackson Whittemore was 21 years, 4 weeks, 1 day and 42 minutes old now.

And not a minute older.

With his enhanced vision and hearing, he detected movement coming up behind him. The last thing he saw before the 2x4 with exposed nails connected with his face was a flash of white. Oh, and a carrot. If he were still alive, Jackson would have groused about the indignity of it all. He'd always thought he'd die in some tragic plane crash over the Alps at the age of fifty-four, shattering the hearts of women and men everywhere who would wail that the world was empty without his charisma and well-preserved sexiness in Hollywood.

Of all the ways to go, this one was downright _pathetic_.

~~~

Meanwhile, halfway across town, one Derek Hale was 27 years, 14 weeks, 2 days and 7 minutes old; well beyond the age that it was considered acceptable to lurk outside bakery cafés because he was too cowardly to own up to the fact that he was deeply, irrevocably in love with one Stiles Stilinski, employee at the P.I. Shoppe.

The Alpha werewolf squared his shoulders and swung open the doors. His finely tuned senses were simultaneously comforted by the smell of cinnamon and apples and assaulted by the tinny version of Elmo and Patsy's _Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer_ that was playing over the speakers. He tugged on his leather jacket and made a beeline for the same booth he occupied three days a week. (_Five_). Derek was unaware that no other werewolf would ever sit in that booth because he had effectively marked it as his territory.

The P.I. Shoppe had the appearance of those classic fifties Mom-and-Pop diners with bright green and white tiles on the floor, black tables, and dark red upholstery on the booth cushions. Befitting the time of the year, there was a Christmas tree in one corner and flashing colorful lights strung from the ceiling.

_"Now the goose is on the table, and the pudding made of fig. And the blue and silver candles, that would just have matched the hair in Grandma's wig…"_

_"_Hello, and welcome to the P.I. Shoppe." Stiles chirped as he swaggered up to the booth just as Derek sat down, a cup of coffee at the ready. (_Black, no sugar, just like Derek's personality and sartorial style._) "If it isn't my favourite Sourwolf! What can I do you for today?" Derek tensed for a moment and stared up at Stiles. But the younger man just stood there with his hands on his hips, bouncing his head to the beat of whatever song was in his head, the usual goofy smile on his face. Derek wasn't sure if the bitterness in his mouth was from disappointment or the coffee.

"Your boss. I have a job for her."

Stiles sighed with mock disappointment. "Ahh, and here I was, thinking you came here to bask in my presence. I am broken-hearted." The lanky young man teased with a carefree smile. "Lydia's in back, I think she's taking a few pies out of the oven. Or dining on the blood of her enemies. One can never be sure with her. I'll just go back over to the counter and eavesdrop on your conversation anyways." Stiles dramatically pointed in the direction of the empty counter before walking away, whistling along to _You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch_ as he went.

"Good evening, Nephew mine. I hope you've come with glad tidings." Came a silky voice next to his booth. Derek lowered his cup of coffee back onto the saucer with a loud _thunk_. His uncle was standing in front of him wearing an apron tied around his waist, a too-tight black t-shirt liberally smudged with flour, and a pair of festive reindeer antlers attached to a headband atop his head. Derek had long since ceased to try figuring out his uncle's motivations and possible nefarious intentions. "But never fear," he said blithely, with a hint of fang. "If you've just come to grace our presence with your usual black cloud, I shan't be cross. After all, 'tis the season for appreciating what little family one has left. Even if that family set you on fire and tore out your throat."

"Uncle Peter." Derek sighed in acknowledgement.

Derek routinely fantasized about just reaching out to his Uncle with open arms…and then shoving the bastard into Lydia, the contact between their bodies causing him to immediately drop dead. But Peter was right, Derek didn't have any family left besides him, and he just didn't have the heart right now to kill his uncle.

(_Again_.)

Lydia chose that moment to saunter out from the kitchen with a plate of pie held delicately atop crimson-tipped fingers. Derek was never sure how she managed to bake pies all day while wearing expensive confections of dresses and matching sky-high heels without getting flour and pie fillings all over herself. Peter's eyes, the same ones Derek's father had shared, glazed over at her approach. "Ah, Lydia, the light of my life, the fire of my loins. My sin, my soul."

Derek can hear Stiles making dying kitten noises from behind the counter. (_"Lolita? He's quoting that pedophile Nabokov?"_)

She only arched an eyebrow impassively. "Don't you have thirty apples to peel, core, and slice? Just because you can grow claws is no excuse for not developing good knife technique. Scram." His uncle gave her a slight bow before slinking off towards the kitchens.

Derek couldn't resist glancing back at Stiles. "Nabokov wasn't the pervert. He was just demonstrating that Herbert Humbert was an unreliable narrator." The plate of pie was set down in front of him and Lydia slid gracefully into the booth opposite him with a flip of her ginger mane.

"It _is_ truly alarming how many people operate under that misapprehension. But I doubt you came here to engage in literary criticism. What do you want?" Her eyes narrowed at him.

[_Lydia Martin had won her first baking competition at the tender age of seven, her autumn berry pie with the honeyed crust having sent the judges into nostalgic raptures, each one proclaiming that they could practically picture the very bushes the berries had ripened upon. The precocious strawberry blonde girl adored baking because it allowed her to marry her appreciation for the precise mathematics of chemical reactions to the voracious sweet tooth she possessed._

_It was at the age of twelve, when a particularly nasty neighbour had been discovered dead in her living room, that Lydia discovered a new talent of hers: sleuthing. She had noticed the pie cooling on the counter through the window that faced her own house, and upon sneaking a sample in the interests of deducting whether it was a useful recipe, discovered the presence of poison. Thus, ten years later, the P.I. Shoppe was born, cleverly combining her talent for baking scrumptious desserts with her investigative acumen._

_As a joke, she had a special mini-pie menu where all pies were $3.14._]

But where were we? Oh, yes, sitting with Derek and Lydia while Stiles pretended to clear dishes from the countertop. Derek was glowering at Lydia while he poked at the pristine white plate with a blunt finger.

"I _don't_ want this pie, for starters. I've never ordered this kind before, what is even in it?" He griped, brows furrowed like a petulant child. Lydia answered him, deadpan. "I melted some dark chocolate, made it into a pudding, and then I drowned it in caramel until whatever was unique and beautiful about the chocolate was suffocated. I thought you'd like it. Eat." She began to twirl a reddish lock around her perfectly-manicured fingers.

"You've heard that Jackson was murdered earlier?" At her unimpressed look, he continued. "Right, stupid question. The point is, I've asked around and it looks like a Hunter did it, out of some misguided belief that maybe Jackson, being a werewolf, must have killed those fake Santas. I want to hire you to prove his innocence." But Lydia could be like a dog with a bone, but god have mercy on the poor, unfortunate soul who ever compared Lydia to a dog to her face. She ignored Derek's request.

"What do you think of the pie?"

He sighed and scooped up a wobbling forkful of chocolate and caramel and Lydia's award-winning pastry crust into his mouth. And then it was like the tension seeped out of his body and his eyes drifted closed as the bittersweet chocolate and salty caramel burst on his tongue. "_Mmm!_" he hummed around a second forkful.

A throat cleared. Somewhere in the vicinity of the counter, there was a clatter of plates dropping.

When Derek opened his eyes, he saw Lydia Martin downright _preening. _Her eyes were twinkling and her hands were clasped excitedly on the table in front of her. "I take it from the vaguely pornographic reaction that you like the pie. Excellent! Put it on the menu, Stiles!" She called out. Turning her attention back to Derek, she reached over and scooped up a blob of caramel with her finger. "FYI, I'm already on the case. _Oh god, I am a genius_. Yeah, Allison came in earlier wanting me to clear her and her family's name from any involvement with Jackson's murder."

"All- You were hired by _Allison Argent_? Are you fucking kidding me? She's a _Hunter_, Lydia."

[_Allison Argent had stumbled into the P.I. Shoppe not even an hour earlier, about to burst into tears. "They're arrested my father! They think he killed Jackson. Please, Lydia, you have to help me." Lydia had stood there staring at the best friend who hadn't really talked to her since even before Peter's resurrection. Her head cautioned her to remain pragmatic, but then her heart had reached up into her throat and she said-_

_"Yes, Allison. Of course I'll help you"_]

"She's my best friend, Derek, even if she's been spending all her time with Scott and avoiding  
me over the Peter thing. I believe her when she says she didn't do it. Am I a hundred percent sure her family isn't involved? No. But if it turns out that her family is involved, she'll believe that conclusion if it comes from me. Don't worry, you can come with us."

She gave Derek a placating smile, then her forehead furrowed and she pointed a finger in the direction of his clothes. "Just…try to wear less black tomorrow. We're Private Investigators, not cat burglars. Also, it's the season to be jolly, and looking at you is just depressing me. Ta."

With that she swept out of the booth and Stiles watched the sway of her hips all the way back to the kitchen before he hopped over the counter and took her vacated seat with a huff, a partially worn-down candy cane sticking out from between his lips.

"Can you believe Peter? I mean, I know he's your uncle and all, but this whole thing with Lydia is creeptastic and disturbing on so many levels." He paused to stick the candy cane back in his mouth and Derek's nostrils flared as he stared at the way Stiles' lips closed around the red and white peppermint treat and _sucked_.

Oblivious to everything, the younger man continued. "I don't even know why he sticks around wooing her when they can't even touch. Everyone, including Lydia, knows I've had a crush on her since third grade, but speaking as her friend-cum-minion, I wonder why she keeps him around after everything. He does make a good little lap-wolf, though."

"Yeah, you suck. I mean- that really sucks." Derek groaned internally and hung his head. _ You are beyond pathetic._ If he noticed Derek's little Freudian slip, Stiles didn't let on. He suddenly focused on Derek, yanking the candy cane out of his mouth and pointing it at him.

"Hey, Derek. If you loved me…"

Derek's head whipped up faster than you could say 'Pavlov'.

"…and we could never, ever touch, wouldn't you eventually get over it and give someone else the slightest hope that you might move on to them?" Stiles' eyes were wide and hopeful as he stared unblinkingly at Derek.

Derek decided to go for broke and give Stiles as heartfelt a declaration as he was capable of. "If I loved you…then I would love you in any way I could. And if we could not touch, then I would draw strength from your beauty. And if I went blind, then I would fill my soul with the sound of your voice and the contents of your thoughts until the last spark of my love for you lit the shabby darkness of my dying mind."

[_Stiles was, in fact, madly and stupidly in love with Derek Hale. He had known this tiny, insignificant, absolutely monumental fact for 2 years, 7 months, 4 days and 29 minutes now. Whenever he thought about Derek, his heart felt so full it could burst— he vacillated between euphoric and despondent at the thought of spending time with Derek beyond the safety of the P.I. Shoppe. _

_"Quasimodo wasn't meant to live his whole life in the bell tower, Stiles," Lydia had told him as she spooned banana crème filling into a pie shell. _

_"Putting aside the fact that you're comparing me to Quasimodo; I respectfully rebut that Quasimodo was better off in the bell tower, away from the cruel mercies of the world outside. He had a nice, safe daily schedule. It was comforting, and I'm sure he was perfectly happy."_

_The reason for Stiles' reticence in the face of life, liberty, and happiness lay in the old, familiar pain that pierced his heart every time he thought about his mother. If you opened your heart up, Stiles had concluded at a young age, then you likewise opened yourself up to agony._

_"You're socially deficient, Stiles. It's neither an insult nor a compliment." Lydia had retorted. "You need to think of life like an apple tree. When there are apples falling around you, apples named Derek, for example…then you can't let them waste their sweetness. You never know when you're going to die, so you have to tell yourself you tasted as many apples as you could."_

_"That was uncharacteristically philosophical of you, Lydia." She had only shrugged. "You know how serious I am about avoiding food wastage, sweetie." _

_She had said nothing else, and Stiles had sat there in the oppressive silence for several minutes before her expectant stare sunk in. _

_"That was also a hint that I need to cut up those apples for today's pies, wasn't it?"_

_"Duh."]_

Stiles broke their shared gaze first, staring down at the table and then everywhere but Derek. "You know what, forget I asked." He tried to laugh it off but it came out sounding stilted. "I'll _ah_- I'll see you tomorrow when we all go play Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys." And then he was gone, leaving Derek to gather up the shattered remains of his heart and his dignity as _Little Drummer Boy _began playing over the speakers.

_Little Baby…Pa, rum, pa, pum, pum_  
_I am a poor boy too._

The very next day, with several inches of snow newly blanketing the ground, Derek met Lydia, Stiles, and Allison outside the morgue. Scott was waiting for them near the back, the morgue attendant having owed him a favour that he was now calling in. Lydia pulled out her second makeup bag, the one that held her resurrection materials and began setting up a pentagram with mirrors around the cold and stainless steel room.

As the light bounced from the stone in her hand and refracted on the mirrors before closing the spell around her, Jackson breathed in deeply and sat up suddenly. He looked around in confusion, his face wan from lack of blood and marred by the tiny circular twin holes at his temple.

"What the fuck? Am I dead?" And then he zeroed in on Stiles and Scott and sneered. "Why are Testicles Left and Right here? I mean, I could understand the ladies, but you three, I'm just going to pretend you don't exist." He winked at Lydia and Allison, ignoring the severe eye-rolling going on amongst Derek, Stiles, and Scott.

"Yes, you're dead. We have some questions—"

"Who killed you?" Lydia interrupted Derek, not willing to waste time.

Jackson looked from Derek to Lydia. "Beats me, whoever it was, he was _huge_. And white. Maybe he was eating a carrot? I don't know, I was distracted by the heinous scarf he was wearing. But who cares about that now?" His voice dropped, became more seductive as he raked his eyes over Lydia's cleavage.

"Since I'm alive again and all, what do you say I fly us out to Tahoe and we work up a sweat in front of an open fire?" Jackson waggled his eyebrows flirtatiously at her. Before anyone could stop him (that is to say, nobody else bothered to try to stop him), Jackson raised a hand and caressed the skin below her collarbone.

And in a flash his body slumped over, lifeless once more. Because the universe has a cruel sense of humor, poor Jackson Whittemore suffered one last ignominy. Now too inanimate to hold his weight up on one elbow, his torso gained enough momentum to topple his entire body off the gurney. He landed face-down on the cold morgue floor with his bare ass sticking in the air. Allison winced in sympathy, a hand covering her face. Lydia simply clutched her Fendi handbag and stared at some vague chip in the plaster on the opposite wall, lips pursed in annoyance.

"Well, that was disappointing. So far, all we have to go on is that we're looking for a murderer who is a fat, white man on a diet. That's helpful." She carefully stepped over the body at her feet and tottered in her steep heels over to the next gurney to start the resurrection procedure once again.

The men sighed and bent down in unison to lift Jackson's body back onto the gurney. Actually, Scott and Derek did the lifting; Stiles just grabbed the paper sheet that was used to cover the corpse up. Before he did so, however, Scott was staring at the dead man with a horrified look on his face. "Wait, is he-"

Derek and Stiles wore matching looks of disgust. "I think he is—"

"Wow," was all Allison could say, eyes wide as Lydia's mini-tart pans.

Lydia, having noticed that her deputy investigators were taking their sweet time coming over to help her, stalked back over to Jackson's gurney and shooed Derek to the side so that she could peer down at what had everyone else so entranced. "Oh, that? I wouldn't worry about it. It's just a combination of rigor mortis and livor mortis— blood flows to the extremities and certain body parts become stiff. Can we please move on to the next victim, unless you want to admire the post-life tumescence in Jackson's penis for a while longer? It's not like there's a crime that needs to be solved." Her passive-aggressive jab worked and Stiles covered Jackson's body back up.

"Happy Holidays, asshole."

Sandy Claws' first victim had been Adrian Harris, a reviled Chemistry teacher from when Stiles had been in High School. His first words upon waking are: "If Stilinski is here, then I truly know I've gone to Hell."

"Except I'm alive, and you're dead, so I think I'm winning here." He bit out before Scott pulled him away.

"I really don't care," Lydia snapped. "Mr. Harris, did you see who doused you with a chemical accelerant and then set you on fire?"

He looked down at his covered body in confusion and realized for the first time that his entire body was blackened like the turkey his mother had attempted every year at Thanksgiving. "I never saw him. I just remember a voice calling out from above me…something about dancing, I think? I was feeling a bit warm under the collar, then."

"Excellent, thanks so much for your help." Stiles interjected, right before he quickly grabbed Lydia's hand and pressed it against Mr. Harris' arm. Everyone turned to him in shock. "What? No need to prolong his suffering." Scott just sighed while Lydia jabbed a fingernail into his side.

"You _do not_ get to backseat-resurrect, Stiles. As it happens, I had several more questions for him, and we may never find out the answers thanks to you!" She finished with another vicious twist into his kidneys. She had the satisfaction of watching Stiles yelp and stumble backwards into Derek's waiting arms. The way both of their faces turned redder than her strawberry-rhubarb crumble had her cackling on the inside.

Sandy Claws' second victim had been Coach Owen Finstock, and as soon as he saw the five people peering down at him, he murmured confusedly, "Bilinski, is that you? Did I drink too much at the reunion?"

It was his former team's co-captain, Scott, who answered him. "Nah, Coach. I don't know how to break it to you, but you're pretty much dead. Except now, because you've been resurrected so that you can help us solve your murder." He looked sympathetic, that was nice. Finstock had always liked that McCall kid.

"Damn, that's just _terrible_! But, sure, I can help out some of my _favorite players_!" He slapped Stiles' arm playfully. "Oh hey, McCall…did you ever hook up with Mahealani back in the day? I mean, he and Whittemore were looking pretty cozy on the job in the village, but I always hoped you'd at least tap that. No regrets, and all that. Better you or Jackson than that creepy Matt dude."

Scott shook his head, "Uh, no, nothing ever happened between Danny and me. I'm with Allison now, but I think Danny and Jackson pretty much just had an epic bromance going on."

Lydia was tapping her index finger against her chin. (Never the lips, that would smudge her Russian Red MAC lipstick). "Coach Finstock, you were pushed off the roof of the National Bank, did you see the person who did it, or do you at least know who had a grudge against you?"

Finstock swung his head around to look at Lydia, exposing Scott, Stiles, and Allison to the gruesome sight of his smashed in skull.

Well, that answered the question of where he impacted with the pavement.

"Nah, everybody loves me. Well, except Harris. The guy kept trying to put Whittemore at the head of the reindeer. Rudolph's supposed to be the leader, remember? And whenever I was on the job, I'd switch it back to Mahealani. But that night…I think Frosty the Snowman did it."

Everyone just stared at him speechless. Allison was the first to regain her voice. "Frosty the Snowman? Okay, um, _were you drinking_?"

"Nah, not more than four beers, honest to god. I was up there to proclaim my love for Greenberg. It's Christmastime, you know? And he's legal now, didn't seem any use in putting it off any longer. _Carpe diem_!"

Lydia judiciously decided to cut in before the Coach could begin one of his monologues borrowed from a sportspirational film. "Casting that aside for a moment, why would Frosty the Snowman want you dead? He killed Adrian Harris, who used to work with you at Beacon Hills High School, and then Jackson Whittemore, a former student at said High School. He also added fake claw slashes to your bodies post-mortem to make it appear like you and Mr. Harris were killed by werewolves."

All she got was a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine, toots." Then something occurred to him.

"Hey, can you send in Greenberg? I'm sure he's been sitting out there sobbing his little heart out like the pathetic bastard he is." Finstock shook his head fondly. Scott and Stiles looked at each other in confusion. "Well, actually—"

"Sure, Coach Finstock. We can do that. But first, why don't you close your eyes and it'll be just like a surprise on Christmas morning." Lydia smiled reassuringly at him. When the older man closed his eyes, a goofy smile still on his face, she brushed her hand against his and he dropped back onto the gurney, deader than a doornail. Stiles moved quickly to cover him back up. Allison kept staring at the space where the man had just been animated with tears in her eyes.

"God, Lydia, did you have to do it like that?"

Lydia turned to her best friend. "Allison that was the kindest way I could do it. There is no Greenberg. _There was never a Greenberg_."

"He died happy, though, the second time around. Sometimes that's the best we can hope for in this world." Derek murmured. Stiles was overwhelmed by such a sense of profound sadness and guilt that he had to clasp his hands together tightly in a supreme effort to not reach out and hold the werewolf's hand.

~~  
"If you wanna marry Derek and adopt were-babies with him, that'd be okay with me."

Stiles had been in the middle of meticulously drizzling four pumpkin pies with warm icing when Scott broadsided him with that line of conversation. He yanked the icing bag safely away from the pie and mustered up as much outraged shock as he could. "_Scott_! If one line is so much as crooked, Lydia will make me redo the _entire pie_ and take the cost of the ruined one out of my paycheck. I won't even get to take that ruined pie home, Scott! Because she just gives them to the homeless." His turncoat of a werewolf best friend just sat on the barstool next to the workbench and calmly watched Stiles' arms windmill emphatically to his words.

"That was a nice try, avoiding the point I was making right there."

Scott just grinned at him and Stiles shook his head petulantly and finished icing the last pie. "Why would you think I want to marry Derek Hale and adopt babies with him?"

Scott snorted. "I don't know, maybe because you've been in love with him for over two years, dude. I was there when you two met, remember? I've known you since we were eight and sitting outside the Principal's office because we both got into trouble with our teachers. I can tell when you fall in love with someone because you do everything to hide it!" Scott had to raise his voice until he was nearly shouting because Stiles was trying to interrupt with his objections.

"One: Ignoring the problem and hoping it goes away is a perfectly acceptable method of dealing with things. Two: I never hid that I was in love with Lydia Martin-"

"That's because you worship the ground she stalks upon. You don't _love_-love her. I don't know, it's like two years ago, at some point, I'd look at you and Derek and I could practically hear the Wedding March right there when you two were gazing soulfully into each other's eyes-"

"Was this before or after he was shoving me up against a wall?"

Scott stared off into the distance, lost in memory. "After, maybe?" At Stiles unimpressed mutters, he continued. "I think you might be a masochist; my mom has a pamphlet on that somewhere. Anyways, I just thought, if you were worried about people not approving..."

"I don't, because I'm not madly in love with that handsome, broody bast- _oh, crap_."

Scott clapped him on the shoulder, altogether too delighted at Stiles' suffering. "Man up. Stop being a wuss about it."

"Oh, _I'm_ being a wuss? Who has to resort to bumping uglies with his girlfriend in the back of his car, _another town over_, just so that he doesn't have to make conversation with her parents?"

Scott winced. "You can't blame me for that! Family dinners are always awkward because Mr. and Mrs. Argent just look at me like they want to take me in to the vet and have me neutered." Stiles just snickered and before long Scott couldn't help but laugh at himself.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is- you stuck with me through this whole werewolf thing. You'll always have me. Seriously."

Stiles nodded, his head bent and face somber. "I know that."

The sweetness of the moment was broken by an annoyed sigh from the corner of the kitchen. "You are undoubtedly aware that I have been here the entire time, and that I've heard every single, nauseating word you two just said?" Peter drawled, contempt dripping from his voice. Stiles just smiled darkly at the older man.

"But of course, comrade mine. It's my fervent hope that now you feel like walking up to Lydia and kissing her right on the lips. Think of it as an early Christmas present for me." He shot back.

One of the timers by the ovens dinged. Peter smirked at the two friends. "And deprive myself of the joy of watching you and my nephew stumble around each other like two newborn giraffes? _I couldn't possibly_."

~~

Lydia Martin strolled briskly around the Christmas Village, eyes raking over every detail, small and large, for clues. She was so close to a breakthrough in the case, she could almost _taste_ it.

It's when she spots Danny, hard at work for a new Santa Claus, that the pieces fell in place. She looks at his costume, and then to the décor around the new Santa, and it's like a heavenly choir descends and sings 'Hallelujah'. Naturally, the first thing she does is open her mouth and scream her head off until the two police officers eating bratwurst on their lunch break stop choking on their food and come running.

When they reach her, she stops screaming and calmly informs them that _Danny_ is the murderer and won't they just _arrest him now_ before he murders what's left of the innocence of the children of Beacon Hills? She may have gotten a little teary before the end of that spiel.

~~

It's scarcely an hour later that her plan comes to fruition. She hasn't told anyone else about Danny because she knows the value of dramatic tension. Lydia and Stiles are working in the P.I. Shoppe, and Derek is sitting in his booth with a slice of key lime pie, when Allison bursts through the doors and blurts out—

"Danny's been arrested for the murders!"

Lydia untied her apron and began to issue orders briskly to Peter. Allison did burst into tears this time, and for want of a sympathetic shoulder, she made do with a dismayed Derek's. "He couldn't have done it! He just couldn't have!" Striding out of the kitchen, Lydia grabbed her handbag and her winter coat.

The Sheriff's department is in a uproar when they arrive. Scott had valiantly been arguing for his friend's innocence, while Sheriff Stilinski was trying to figure out just why his officers had arrested the young man with little evidence, and Danny himself was sitting at a desk, handcuffed and miserable.

Lydia strode through the door and stuck her fingers in between her lips and whistled. The noise is shrill enough to bring everything in the station to a standstill. This was her moment to shine, and all Sheriff Stilinski could do was sigh because he was used to Lydia's machinations. "I've gathered you all here because I've solved the case. If you'll just settle down, we can make this quick. I have a temperamental peppermint-and-chocolate pie in the oven and I don't trust Peter not to mess it up."

"This is always my favorite part." Stiles stage-whispered to Derek. "I like to see if my guesses are right."

"First," Lydia began, pausing dramatically. "Let's go over what we know. We know that the murderer tried to make Harris' and Finstock's deaths appear to be the work of werewolves. We also know that Harris had kept bumping Danny from a leadership position in the reindeer herd at the Christmas Village."

"So Danny did kill them out of jealousy?" Stiles burst out. From where he sat chained to the desk, Danny groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

Lydia stopped moving and glared at Stiles over her shoulder. "_No_. But what we may not have realized is that when Harris demoted Danny from the Rudolph position, he would end up playing Dancer."

Scott gasped, "Mr. Harris said the murderer said something about dancing…it must've been 'Dancer'!" Lydia nodded magnanimously.  
"Precisely."

[Behind them, Derek heard the Sheriff shake his head in confusion and say in an aside to his deputy, "_How do we know that? Dead men don't talk!_"]

"But here is the rub— if the murderer was trying to frame a werewolf for the crime and Danny's own best friend, a werewolf himself, ends up conveniently dead, it begins to appear that all three were murdered by the same person."

Derek was nodding, rubbing the scruff on his chin. "That makes sense, if we believed that the Santa murders were werewolf-related, then we'd believe that it was Jackson who did it since he was dead and presumably had motive."

"Very good, Derek!" Lydia purred.

Allison piped up. "And the murderer clearly didn't care if an innocent Hunter was implicated in Jackson's death."

Derek tried his level best not to glare at her. Lydia was pacing around the room again.

"Which brings us to the next thing we know: that Jackson saw something huge, white, with a carrot and a hideous scarf right before he died, AND!" Lydia shouted over the protests of the Sheriff. "We also know that Coach Finstock thought Frosty the Snowman did it. Both descriptions point to the same individual killing them."

"Uh, Lydia, you aren't actually going to argue that Frosty did do it?" Stiles whispered, looking concerned. Lydia didn't even deign to respond to that.

"It was actually Coach Finstock who gave us all the clues we needed to solve the case. Which brings us to YOU, Scott!" She pointed at him, causing everyone to gasp with horror and twist to stare at him.

Scott looked frightened. "What? I didn't kill them!"

She sighed. "_Of course_ you didn't. But Coach Finstock brought up your fake romantic history with Danny in high school. He always thought one of two people would have hooked up with Danny: you or Jackson. Leaving me suspicious that the murderer does in fact have a crush on Danny and sought to remove the obstacles in his way!"

Derek was standing right next to Stiles and saw the moment the gears clicked together in his brain. Stiles looked overjoyed and began to open his mouth. Fearing that Lydia would murder him in cold blood if he so much as interrupted her big moment, Derek clamped a hand over the other man's mouth.

Sheriff Stilinski looked from his officers to Lydia. "Wait, if you know Danny didn't kill any of our victims, why did you accuse him earlier today?"

Allison shook her head in disbelief. "Lydia! You accused Danny of the murders? Wha- _WHY_?"

Lydia looked around at the expectant faces, and saw that _now_ was the moment. Looking over at Danny, she addressed him directly. "Danny, sweetie, was Matt Daehler working at the Christmas Village?"

"Uh, I don't think so. But he was always there. I think he had a crush on me."

Lydia went in for the kill. "Well, that's interesting, because when I was at the Christmas Village earlier, I saw Matt standing right there, watching you while he was in costume." She spun around and flung her arm out to point accusingly at the door to the station. "A Frosty the Snowman costume!"

Everyone in the station looked over to where she was pointing and saw none other than a young man in a Frosty costume, peering through the open door. Poor Matt had endured the horror of watching his crush being handcuffed and spirited away and it was his obsession with Danny that led to his downfall- he fell for the bait Lydia had dangled right in front of him. Seeing all the determined faces staring at him, Matt squeaked and began to waddle away as fast as he could in his cumbersome costume.

"STOP!" Sheriff Stilinski hollered. Several officers began to give chase, but Derek was faster than any of them. The carollers standing outside the station were knocked to the side right in the middle of singing.

(_Look at Frosty go. Thumpetty thump thump. Thumpety thump thump, over the hills of snow_.)

Derek was wolfed out before he reached the snowman. One leap and he was tackling Matt to the ground. His claws pierced the costume, causing it to deflate, enveloping the smaller man in swathes of material.

And with that, Frosty the Snowman had melted. Satisfied that another homicidal hypothesis had been solved, our heroes headed home.

~~~

'Twas the night before Christmas, and the P.I. Shoppe was closed down for a private Christmas party.

Stiles was decked out in one of those ridiculous Christmas sweaters with the ironed-on patterns and Hobby Lobby craft paint that everybody's grandma liked to wear whenever there was a holiday. He had been dropping in on various conversations, offering people more drinks and treats, before finally stopping by his dad's booth.

"Hi-ho, Daddi-o! How's your pie? Mind if I have a bite?" He slid his dad's half-eaten plate of pie over before the Sheriff could respond. Sheriff Stilinski only raised his eyebrows and wrote it off as just another particular quirk of his son's. In between mouthfuls of pumpkin pie, Stiles began to chatter on. His father could only tolerate two minutes of _Derek this _and_ Derek that_, before he decided enough was enough.

"Stiles, I don't think you're stupid— far from it. But I have to wonder just how oblivious you are going to stay. I didn't raise you to be deliberately cruel. If you don't care about the man in that way, at least do him a favor and let him know. But here's the thing- _don't interrupt me_."

Stiles had been ready to interject to defend himself, but fell silent at his dad's _I-Have-a-Gun_ voice. "Here's the thing, I think you do have feelings for him. I get it, son, I do. Love is scary, you can get hurt. But god, I don't regret your mother at all. Do her a favor and grab that bull by the horns and lasso it good."

[_This was, in fact, a thing the late Darya Baradost-Stilinski used to utter all the time. A former barrel-racing champion, and a daughter of Iraqi immigrants who had settled in Texas and assimilated with aplomb, Darya had spied the then-Deputy John Stilinski trying to chase down a suspect. Never one to let good opportunities pass her by, Darya had pulled out the length of rope she carried with her everywhere (because a gal never knew when she might need to save the day), and swung the lasso at the fleeing criminal. She brought him down, tied him up in damn near record time like he was one of her prize calves. She had then placed a cowboy boot on top of the humiliated man, winked at the dumbstruck Deputy, and told him—_

_"Sometimes, sugar, you just gotta grab that bull by the horns and lasso it good."_]

Stiles was silent for several long seconds after his father finished his lecture.

"You do realize Derek is a werewolf and probably heard everything you said because he's only two booths away?"

"Yes."

"Just checking."

"Eh, I figured you needed all the help you could get. Love you, son." That was code for _'get the fuck out the booth and go talk to Derek'._

"Thanks, Dad. Love you, too. No more pie for you tonight." He absconded with the half-eaten pie.

"Damn it, Stiles!"

~~

Meanwhile, across the room, Allison was struggling with her best friend's insistence on keeping Peter Hale around— alive. She wouldn't mind if his head were mounted on the bakery walls (her father would only be glad to help make that happen). But after the last few months without Lydia, Allison could feel the absence of her friendship like a yawning hole that was beginning to drag everything that was good in her life into the abyss.

"I'm just trying to understand!" Allison insisted. And she really was. Peter seemed to be behaving, and Lydia appeared to be content with the arrangement they had. But the brunette woman missed their nights out and she missed Lydia barging into her life and fixing her wardrobe. The other woman was never one to mince words; she didn't tiptoe around Allison for which she was perpetually grateful. Lydia raised her gaze from her mug of hot chocolate, liberally dosed with peppermint schnapps and a heaping of cinnamon whipped cream, and stared intently at her friend.

"He _knows_ me, Ally," she began, and Allison just knows she won't be able to disagree with Lydia on this. She never could when Lydia used that nickname. "He knows everything about me; I can't ever lie or hide from him. I don't have to make that effort. Can't you understand how…_nice…_that can be to have around? Maybe it's not true love or any kind of typical relationship, but when I know he's around, my life is a little less empty."

Allison sighed and grabbed Lydia's hand, enveloping the redhead's smaller one in hers. "For you, I'll deal with it. But I still hate his guts, and if he so much as puts _one claw out of line_, be sure he knows that I have about twelve very creative ways to make him suffer."

Lydia smiled gratefully at the brunette. "Merry Christmas, Allison. I think it'll be a good one this year."

"I think so, too." The best friends shared a smile.

Several moments later, Allison smirked at the other woman. "So, how _do_ you deal with the no-touching thing when it comes to sex?"

Lydia's grin was merciless this time. "Well, I haven't let it come to that yet. But I would imagine verbally, and then with lots of creative use of saran wrap."

She let that sink in while Allison clutched her eggnog close and whimpered.

~~

Derek was sitting in his usual booth looking as abject and pitiful as a man wearing all black in conjunction with a broken heart could.

Just then, Peter strolled by with a slice of pie. Derek recognized it the second it was placed in front of him on the table. It's his grandmother's famous pecan pie, which she obstinately only made during the holiday season. Peter's face was carefully blank. "Lydia deigned to allow me to add something to the holiday menu. This was the only pie to pass her stringent requirements. It did take me a while to remember everything Mom taught me about making it. But we wolves do have exceptional taste and scent memory."

A faint smile appeared on his face, softening the harsh planes of his face and making him appear years younger. "Remember what she used to tell us whenever she made it? How did it go…_'candy might be sweet, but it's a traveling carnival blowing through town. Pie is home'_…"

"…_and people always come home_." Derek finished for him with a small nod.

It doesn't fix all the bad that had happened; all the awful, dark things both of them are guilty of. But it means _something_. And while Derek doesn't quite have it in him yet to forgive Peter for Laura and everything else, there's one thing he can—

"Thanks," Derek said, already slicing his fork through the pie. He lets his eyes close at the first bite and as he was enveloped in the rush of endorphins, he allowed himself to believe that for a moment, he was back home in his kitchen, the smell of cinnamon candles burning, his parents laughing uproariously at the salacious story his aunt Jessamyn was telling, his little sister and cousins shrieking as they ran around upstairs playing with their new toys, and his grandmother's wrinkled arm pressed against his as they shared a slice of pie between them.

When he opened his eyes, his uncle has left the booth and Stiles is standing there. "You okay?"  
"Peter made my grandma's pecan pie recipe. It just…made my heart hurt a bit." He admitted honestly.

"Shit, I'm sorry. I can beg Lydia to take it off the menu…" Stiles looked so awkward, as if he were debating rushing off right that moment to find Lydia rather than have the Very Serious Conversation that Derek had heard the Sheriff tell Stiles they needed to have.

"No. I think...I think it's a good kind of hurt. Want a bite?" He raised an eyebrow towards the other man.

That's all the incentive Stiles needs to sit down opposite him and begin demolishing the pie. Derek smiles at him— he doesn't mind. When he's done with the pie, Stiles looks at Derek earnestly. "So, it's been pointed out to me that I've been purposefully obtuse. Lydia's words, not mine. I adore her, I really do. But I guess it's well enough past the time that I admit that I love her in more of a '_someday-you're-going-to-take-over-the-world-and-I'd-rather-be-your-minion-than -suffer-your-wrath_' kind of way. A real relationship— actually being in love— well that kind of scares the shit out of me. In an '_I'd give you all my Batman comics_!' kind of way. And I really didn't mean to keep pushing you away or make you think I don't care bec-"

"Stiles…STILES!" Derek shouted. Stiles fell silent, arms frozen mid-flail. "I'd give you my Batman comics, too."

"Oh." His arms dropped to his sides. And then a slow smile grew on his face. "That's awesome."

As the snow drifted against the windows, Derek looked at Stiles and he would swear in that moment, everything seemed a little bit brighter and warmer. And as Stiles looked at Derek, he would always remember that the light from the candle flames behind him seemed to reflect in Derek's eyes, making them glow. And for everyone in the little bakery café, their hearts were full of holiday cheer, just as they should be.

_At that moment, in the town of Beacon Hills, events occurred that are not, were not, and should never be considered an ending. For endings, as it is known, are where we begin_.


End file.
